<p>And you have to have the strategy in place ahead of time. Many schools I’ve found only give merit aid to students who apply early, maybe November 15. I’m sure the general applicant doesn’t realize this.</p>
<p>BobWallace said:
</p>
<p>According to USNWR 48 of the top 50 are $40k or more. Of the second 50, 10 are $40k or more. That’s 58 out of the top 100 with tuition of $40,000 or more.</p>
<p>Contrast that to 5/100 with tuition less than $30,000.</p>
<p>The numbers don’t lie.</p>
<p>M</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In other words, they don’t all cost the same - thanks for that.</p>
<p>Just a matter of time. There have been a lot of tippy-top students who have opted for flagships, rather than the inflated pvt. college prices.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Right. It doesn’t require a lot of homework, though. The stats on admitted students from the year or two before are readily available via IPEDS. My son used this strategy with several EA schools and more that he applied to RD. It gave him lots of great options.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nope, just 48 of the top 50. You’re welcome.</p>
<p>M</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m after the truth here, not a silly Internet slap fight. “All private schools cost the same” is false and misleading. Attempting to pass it off as truth helps no one and adds nothing of value to the conversation.</p>
<p>“All but a couple of the Top 50 US News Private Liberal Arts Colleges cost within 10% of each other.” is truth, and is a useful bit of information for the college shopper. So, my recommendation to you is to concentrate on truthful, helpful statements that add value to the discussion.</p>
<p>Aside from internet slapfights (a phrase I plan to expropriate), there’s not a lot of substantive difference between “all these schools cost the same” and “all these schools are within a 10% price band.” So here’s my recommendation to you: [Psyco</a> - Lighten up Francis - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>“These schools” is the important distinction, Sgt. Hulka. “All private schools” and “Top 50 US News LACs” are two very different things.</p>
<p>I have found it valuable to look at the US News and World Report list of schools in their Ultimate College Guide under " Where the Money iS: Schools that award the most need based aid". The last two columns of that list have the average merit award and the % of students receiving merit awards. This give a person a running start on what schools even give out merit money, if financial aid is not going to happen, but the money is not there, and how much is available. Most schools do give out some merit. Even the top 25 schools usually have about half that do. but when you see that 5% figure for Duke, and the high average amount , you know that there, you either hit a lottery ticket jackpot or it’s full pay, baby, if you don’t have need. Wheeras at GW or Case Western, with a kid with the stats that make Duke a not out of the realm choice for the list, getting some merit money, is not so far fetched of a hope. </p>
<p>The Catholic and other religiously associated schools, are taking a big hit in terms of having to discount sticker prices, I have seen. My son got a very nice award from the top Catholic school in a major city that brought that cost down to below the OOS public cost there, and I think that school is priced to be only a small premium over the state schools for instaters and gives sweet discounts to students that have good stats. So they have a market with those kids who get into Big State U with no financial aid and no merit. They offer a smaller school with some more flexibility and a cost at least a good $10K below what Big State would cost, maybe even more of a discount. That can mean a big difference over 4 years.</p>
<p>Some sample great packages from kids I know this year: U Mich is about $10K less in sticker price from, say, Johns Hopkins for kids around here. throw in a $10K merit award, and you are looking at $20K a year differential or $80K over 4 years. A young man accepted to Richmond college is being offered $22K more a year over his first choice Haverford. Family could really use the money, though they don’t qualify for for financial aid. Slightly less in cost as well. University of Denver at $25K less than BU and $30 less than Tufts or Colgate.? Furman vs Dickenson, for a price diff of $24K a year? Depauw is offering $25K less than what Villanova wants. That these kids from well heeled families, that did not qualify for financial aid are taking these offers, plus many more are going our state school route at schools where this happened rarely 15 years ago when I first moved here, indicates to me that cost is taking an increasingly important role in college choice.</p>
<p>Also, when looking at cost figures, there is a big difference between a sticker price of $60K, which is where some of these schools are, and $40K. Even $50K. When one looks at discounts in dollar amounts, it is really important. $10K off of a top priced school still can exceed the cost of one with a $50K COA.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This was not our experience. My D2 didn’t specifically go looking for merit scholarships, but she got merit awards ranging from $15K to $25K/year from 4 of her schools, all top 25-ish LACs. Net of scholarships, COA at those 4 schools ranged from $32,800 to $46,900. That’s a pretty big spread.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Again, not our experience. As I said, we weren’t particularly looking for merit scholarships for D2: colleges made her list purely on the basis of academics and “fit.” We’re not loaded, but we’re secure enough financially that the need-only colleges say we’re full-pay. I understand that, and can live with it; we decided we’d be prepared to bite the bullet and pay full freight if it came to that. The merit awards were, with one exception, unexpected. (One of the colleges has a reputation for giving a lot of merit money, so that one was not a surprise, but even there we weren’t necessarily expecting as much as they offered). In retrospect, it’s easy enough to see why D2 was a particularly desirable catch for each of the schools that came through with big merit awards, based not only on her stats but also on ECs, academic interests, and the whole package. But there was no “strategy” on our part, other than having a highly desirable applicant who was a great fit for the schools in question, and also toward the top of their applicant pool.</p>
<p>I just think it’s become a highly competitive environment for LACs outside the top 10 or so to land the students they want. The schools that offered my D2 merit awards already meet 100% of need, but now appear to be ramping up their merit awards without retreating from their commitment to meet 100% of need. This is somewhat unusual: most schools that give a lot of merit money don’t meet 100% of need for students with need. Personally, I’m not sure I’d feel great about taking merit money in that circumstance: if the school calculates that we can afford to pay and some other student can’t, I should think the student who can’t afford it should get the money. But that’s just me. It’s not how the schools see it, nor is it how many parents see it, and that’s fine; people are certainly free to make their own decisions on such matters. </p>
<p>My suspicion is that part of what’s going on here is an adverse selection problem. Once a school makes a commitment to need-blind admissions and meeting 100% of need, it’s going to attract a lot of applicants with a lot of need, and that can get really expensive. There are several ways to deal with that: one is to go need-aware in admissions, as Brandeis and Reed recently did. Another is simply to not meet 100% of need, which would tend to change the composition of your applicant pool, or at least drive off a certain number of high-need admits who will decide they can’t afford to attend or just find a better deal elsewhere. I’ve heard that UVA, which has long been one of the few public universities to meet full need for OOS students, is now planning to undo its commitment to meeting full need for OOS applicants because it’s just gotten too expensive. That’s a time-tested approach with schools lower in the pecking order. A third option is to do what some of my D2’s colleges did: continue to meet 100% of need, but sweeten the pot for some full-pays with substantial merit awards. At one of D2’s colleges, nearly 70% of students get need-based aid, with an average need-based grant of about $32K. If they can land someone like D2 with a $15K or $25K merit award, they’re still better off financially than if that place goes to an average (for them) need-based aid recipient. It’s an expensive strategy on their part, but at the end of the day it may be less expensive than foregoing merit awards and continuing to meet 100% of need.</p>
<p>bclintonk, obviously it’s possible to get merit awards without a strategy. My point was that if you want to be sure to receive merit awards you need a strategy. A student with qualifications significantly lower than your kid’s, applying to the same set of schools could very well get nothing. Bad strategy - they would need to target different schools.</p>
<p>Ok, bclintonk, your child did not need a strategy to find merit aid because she was highly desirable and you were wealthy enough to pay if you had to. That’s great. But many of us whose children are wonderful in our eyes but not maybe as magical in the college’s and who can’t pay the list price DO need a strategy if we want our kids to have choices other than the state school.</p>
<p>I think many smaller LACs and small private Us that are not household names will have real problems unless they re-imagine themselves. Some will fail.</p>